The Realistic Lens Camera replicates the effects of real-world camera lenses including bokeh, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and lens imperfections such as soft focus and barrel distortion. It provides a library of iconic lens profiles from numerous lens manufacturers (figure 1).


Realistic Lens Camera

Figure 1: Using the Petzal 100mm lens profile


Realistic Lens Camera Parameters

Physical Camera Parameters

Lens - 

Sensor Width - 

Viewing Angle

Lens Shift - This is useful if you want to render images of tall buildings/structures from a similar height as the human eye, but keep the vertical lines parallel.

Pixel Aspect Ratio - Squashes or stretches the depth-of field disc and renders it to a non-square pixel format (like NTSC or PAL).

Clipping

Near Clip Depth - Distance from the camera to the nearest clipping plane, measured in meters.

Far Clip Depth - Distance from the camera to the farthest clipping plane, measured in meters.

Depth of Field

Auto-Focus - Keeps the focus on the closest visible surface at the center of the image, regardless of the aperture, the aperture edge, and focal depth values. This setting is on by default.

Focal Depth - The depth of the plane in focus, measured in meters. If you are having trouble seeing a result when you adjust this setting, double-check to make sure that Auto-Focus is enabled. Auto-Focus overrides the Focal Depth setting.

F-Stop - Determines the aperature to focal length ratio. 

Aperture Edge - This controls aperture edge detection at all points within the aperture. Lower values give more pronounced edges to out-of-focus objects affected by the a shallow depth-of-field, such as objects in the foreground and background. The aperture edge modifies the depth-of-field's bokeh effect. High values increase the contrast towards the edge.

Bokeh Side Count - The number of edges making up the bokeh shape.

Bokeh Rotation - The bokeh shape orientation.

Bokeh Roundedness - The roundness of the bokeh shape's sides.

Effects

Chromatic Aberration - Determines the strength of the chromatic aberration effect. 0% orduces no effect and 100% creates a realistic effect. Any amount above 100% results in an exaggerated effect. 

Position

Position - The camera's X,Y,and Z positions in the scene.

Target - The target position where the camera is pointed in the scene.

Up-Vector - The camera's up direction in the scene. The default setting is in the Y-direction (0, 1, 0).


Stereo

Stereo Output - This specifies the output rendered in stereo mode.

  • Left - Renders the left eye image.
  • Right - Renders the right eye image.
  • Side-By-Side - Renders the scene as a pair of two-dimensional images.
  • Anaglyphic - Makes the render viewable with red/blue 3D glasses.
  • Over-Under - The pair of two-dimensional images is placed one above the other for special viewers.

Stereo Mode - Determines whether the stereo mode is off-axis or parallel.

Eye Distance - The distance between the left and the right eye in stereo mode, measured in meters.

Swap Eyes - This swaps left and right eye position when stereo mode is showing both.

Left Stereo Filter/Right Stereo Filter - The left and right filter colors used to create the anaglyphic stereo effect in the render.